María Uriarte is an ecologist who specializes in the processes that drive tropical forest dynamics, especially after extreme weather events. She is currently a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Science at Columbia University and serves as adjunct faculty in the Department of Ecology at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.[1] She conducts research primarily in Puerto Rico and Brazil and is associated with the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE) tropics[2] and ForestGeo[1] research groups.